Tim Miller Queer Performer

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

2011-12 TOUR UPDATE & NEWS!

Yeehaw! 2011-12, here I come!I am very excited about all my travels, workshops, performances and adventures coming up in 2011-12. As the LAY OF THE LAND tour continues, I am performing in all parts of the country this Fall- Northwest to Southeast, Texas to Tennessee, Southern California to Southern Illinois to Southern Florida! I am particularly buzzed to be doing weeklong performance residencies at SIU-Carbondale, Cal State University Northridge and Lamar University in Texas where I will be making pieces with students out of intensive workshops.

As I look to the new year, 2012 brings us yet more assaults on gay people as certain states try to write bigotry into their state Constitutions. I will be doing two residency projects exploring this nasty phenomenon in both states where citizens will be voting to take away rights from gay folks: North Carolina and Minnesota. Also runs of LAY OF THE LAND coming in 2012 in Minneapolis and Philadelphia at InterAct Theater.Here's the main stops for Fall, 2011! Hope to see you somewhere on my travels!Best,Tim________________________________________Upcoming Performances!September 25–30, 2011 Southern Illinois UniversityOctober 1–2 Southern Methodist UniversityDallas, TXOctober 3 University of Texas, DallasOctober 10–11 Reed CollegePortland, OROctober 12 Oregon State UniversityOctober 12 Western Oregon UniversityOctober 21–28 Cal State UniversityNorthridge, CANovember 1–2 Austin Peay State UniversityTennesseeNovember 5 Colony Theater, Miami Beach Sleepless NightNovember 7–9 George College and State UniversityNovember 10–13 7 Stages TheaterAtlanta, GANovember 25–December 2 Lamar UniversityBeaumont, TX

Saturday, March 05, 2011

2011 SPRING NEWSLETTER

Hi Everybody!

Hope 2011 has been treating you well. I had a fantastic run in NYC at PS 122 in December and I am now gearing up for several months of nonstop performing and teaching! It burns the calories! It all kicks off with a residency at Harvard Dance Center this week! Then I am super excited to get back to LSU where I will make a piece with the performance studies students and do my show LAY OF THE LAND. Then back to Chicago for Victory Gardens Theater residency and a show at Links Hall! And the beat goes on! Full schedule below.

There is lots of other nice returning afoot as I head back to residencies at James Madison University, North Carolina School of the Arts, Penn State and Grinnell in March and April. I love that people invite me back lots! (My mom would imagine it means I have behaved myself, or at least misbehaved in the way I was hired to!) But then new adventures like my first performance at University of Virginia and first performance on the Olympic Penninsula for the Goddard College interdisciplinary residency.

Spring will bring an extended time performing and teaching in Europe! Will let you know about that later!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

SUMMER 2010 NEWLETTER & FALL SNEAK PREVIEW!

After nonstop Winter and Spring travels I am home for a bit to catch my breath and jump in the ocean as much as possible! Here's a sneak peek at what is coming up late Summer and in the Fall! The NYC premiere of LAY OF THE LAND will happen at PS 122 in December. What fun!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

TIM MILLER WINTER 2010 NEWSLETTER & TOUR SCHEDULE

TIM MILLER WINTER 2010 NEWSLETTER & TOUR SCHEDULE

Hi All

I am buzzing with the first weeks of nonstop travel, performing, teaching for 2010! I have already had great adventures at USC, Univ of Texas, Vortex Theater in Austin and a residency at Cal State University Channel Islands! I had a FANTASTIC time in Austin! Great piece on LAY OF THE LAND in Austin's daily paper, The American Statesman.

The first months of touring my new show LAY OF THE LAND have gone great! (First stops on the tour so far l- L.A., Tallahassee, Cleveland Ingenuity Festival, Boston Center for the Arts, S.F. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Chicago Victory Gardens Theater and Alaska's Out North theater! I get around! The "lay of the land" indeed! Next stops are all over Ohio, New Orleans, Colby College in Maine, North Carolina School of the Arts, Virginia Tech, James Madison University and a special residency in Chicago March 15-22!

I am VERY excited to be heading back to my beloved Chicago for a run at the amazing Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago with Lay of the Land for March 15-22.http://www.victorygardens.org/content/node/1432I will also be doing a week-long performance workshop that will result in a performance March 22http://www.victorygardens.org/content/node/1633Such a wonderful theater with the added frisson of where John Dillinger was killed! I was obsessed with Dillinger as a child!

LAY OF THE LAND feels super strong and mega timely in its engagement of marriage equality and the tipping point we are reaching around gay civil rights in this country. Very much the piece I would want to be doing at this juicy time-after marriage equality came to California (only to be snatched away months later) And as this issue races all over the country from, Iowa to the loss of equality in Maine last Fall. Great review in L.A. TIMES!

The Los Angeles Times: “Miller's LAY OF THE LAND enters territory as exhilarating as it is meaningful. Miller lays out his unapologetically renegade viewpoint with exemplary economy and sardonic humor. The final apotheosis stands high in Miller's canon, which, together with the overarching relevance, makes "Lay of the Land" a vivid, must-see achievement.”

Jan 12 SF, French American International SchoolJan 27 USC Vision and Voices

Hope you have and are having/had a great summer. (I am a firm believer - in spite of the semester system- that summer continues till the Autumnal Equinox and my birthday Sept 22) .

I am very excited about all my touring, performances and residencies for the coming year with my new show LAY OF THE LAND. Just premiered in LA in May and has started its national tour. (First stops this summer- L.A., Tallahassee, Cleveland Ingenuity Festival and Alaska! "lay of the land" indeed! Coming up is S.F. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Boston Center for the Arts, Out North in Anchorage, SMU, Southern Illinois University, Coe College and Pacific University. Fulls chedule below.

LAY OF THE LAND feels super strong and mega timely. Very much the piece I would want to be doing at this juicy time-one year to the day after marriage equality came to California (only to be snatched away months later) And as this issue races all over the country from, Iowa to New England

Great review in L.A. TIMES!The Los Angeles Times: “Miller's LAY OF THE LAND enters territory as exhilarating as it is meaningful. Miller lays out his unapologetically renegade viewpoint with exemplary economy and sardonic humor. The final apotheosis stands high in Miller's canon, which, together with the overarching relevance, makes "Lay of the Land" a vivid, must-see achievement.”

Had a great run of shows this summer of LAY OF THE LAND at the GORGEOUS Hanna Theater. (Where the Ohio regional theater Great Lakes Theater Festival performs.) Amazing restored vaudeville house with a fantastic thrust stage. The Ingenuity Festival was great.I have thought a lot about a gorgeous moment before my last show at the Hanna on a sunday. It was so exciting to have theCleveland gay men's chorus singing out there on 14th street as I scurried over. It was such a beautfiul claiming of space with the chorus there. I can't imagine a more charged way to arrive at the theater before I perform. and then they finished and people piled into the Hanna for LAY OF THE LAND (which really takes place ona street!) It felt full of hope and possibility for all the work we have to do ahead!

LOS ANGELES TIMES May 22, 2009Review: LAYING INTO BOLD TERRITORY 'Lay of the Land' at HighwaysGiven that Prop. 8, the anti-same-sex marriage ballot measure, is currently under review by the California Supreme Court, an automatic edge accompanies the giddy timeliness of "Lay of the Land," which ends its Highways run on Saturday. Gay performance artist Tim Miller's latest foray into purposeful self-examination is in some ways his most important work to date.Miller's technique hasn't essentially changed, just ripened like wine. He still investigates the audience close-up from the outset, invading the aisles with a flashlight. His delivery remains a fusion of half-closed eyes, mercurial inward focus and outwardly pointed insouciance. The rambling commentary, peppered with interjections that trade gloss for spontaneity, enters territory as exhilarating as it is meaningful.What particularly distinguishes "Land" is the tautly impressive text. The story of Abraham and Isaac forms one point of identification, choking on gristle and a near-tracheotomy by his father another, as Miller lays out his unapologetically renegade viewpoint with exemplary economy and sardonic humor. Marriage equality is the thematic undercurrent against which reminiscences of various activist and performance landmarks coalesce into something larger than the sum of their considerable parts.Stagecraft is minimal -- a microphone, projections of the 48 continental states, delicious childhood pictures, and a clothesline. This comes into indelible play at the climax, where the U.S. and California state flags provide fodder for Miller's most audaciously effective observations. The resulting tableau and final apotheosis stand high in Miller's canon, which, together with the overarching relevance, makes "Lay of the Land" a vivid, must-see achievement.-- David C. Nichols

I am mega excited about my new performance I am working on called "LAY OF THE LAND". It's my saucy and sharp-knifed look at the State of the Onion (I mean Union!)...my jury duty anxiety...my adventures performing in 45 States...and cheap meat choking queer 10 year old boy's throats in America's kitchens! The piece friskily gets at the feeling of gay folks being perpetually on trial, on the ballot, on the menu....that invades this queer life. See what having a narrow majority of your state invalidate 18,000 gay families' marriages will do! The piece is a "lay" in all kinds of ways: an assignation, a topography, and of course a narrative ballad with a recurrent refrain! (my favorite way down the list definition for "lay"!)

I will be performing and teaching all over the country in the next months. Winter will bring me to Princeton University, Univ of Michigan, Michigan State Univ, Albion College, Grand Valley State Univ and Univ of Wisconsin. How I love the midwest! My midwest farmer grandparents would be proud! One set are from Michigan!

May is the premiere of my new show In L.A. at Highways. Then on to residencies in Tallahassee at the amazing Mickee Faust Club and Cleveland Ingenuity Festival! I head off tomorrow to Philadelphia Institute of Conetmporary Art to do a panel with Andres Serrano and Karen Finley.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

TIM MILLER "Charged Bodies" in CHICAGO

Check out this big TIME OUT CHICAGO feature on my CHARGED BODIES project! http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/lgbt/69020/miller-time

Charged Bodies has been an amazing four month long National Performance Network Community Fund project sponsored by Links Hall where I had the honor to mentor these three truly fierce emerging queer Chicago-based performers. Awilda, Rebecca and Sentell were chosen by an independent panel to take part in this mentorship program and working with them has been one of the most satisfying projects I have ever been part of. "Emerging" doesn't even begin to do them justice though. These three artists are exploding into their creativity and command our attention as they claim charged new spaces of LGBT experience. We will be hearing much more from each of these artists in the next years. Links Hall is truly to be commended for creating this opportunity.

Since July we have undertaken an exciting and charged exploration into creating original performance work from our lives, dreams, obsessions, peeves, memories and desires. The courage each of these three artists has shown as they take on the complex spaces of family, sexuality and gender can inspire all of us to keep digging deep into our own lives and their meanings. Indeed, there are so many ways that they also mentored me by the courage of their creativity, intelligence and heart. Tim Miller www.TimMillerPerformer.com

NAKED TRUTH Miller coaches Harper, Kling and Rodriguez Lora (pictured below). Tim Miller is a talker. We’re not just referring to the fact that the legendary solo performer, writer and teacher is the kind of guy journalists love because he can speak intelligently and effusively on any number of topics. Miller also communicates with his body. That’s why the man behind emotionally charged LGBT solo performance works such as My Queer Body, Usand 1001 Beds was tapped for a new mentoring program in Chicago.Miller, 50, hails from Los Angeles, where he lives with his partner of nearly 15 years, writer Alistair McCartney. Miller’s one-man shows are emotional, abrasive, pointed and often political examinations of the queer experience conveyed through his words and (sometimes naked) body. They’re so provocative that, in 1990, Miller became one of several artists famously referred to as the “NEA Four” when the National Endowment for the Arts yanked their funding. His tours have included frequent lectures on the university circuit as well as extended workshops in which he both trains intensively and performs with fellow artists.Last year, at a gathering in New Orleans for the National Performance Network, a think-tank funding agency for performance artists, Miller ran into CJ Mitchell, who runs Links Hall, a performing-arts venue in Lakeview. The two came up with the idea of Miller spending a week in Chicago in July to train a group of 17 artists and then continuing with three of them in a four-month mentorship capacity. “The [NPN] has these small grants to gather energies and do an extended period of community-based work,” Miller says. “It seemed like a really good match.”The result, Charged Bodies, culminates in a preview of the three mentees’ new works this weekend. Chosen by an independent panel, Sentell Harper, Rebecca Kling and Awilda Rodriguez Lora trained with Miller in person in July and October, on an ongoing basis via telephone, and by submitting videos of their work t o Miller via YouTube.For Kling, 24, an Evanston native and Northwestern graduate who identifies as trans, performance art helps negotiate the transitioning process. “It’s been a struggle to figure out how to put myself on stage physically in terms of the nitty-gritty,” Kling says. “Where do I want to move my body, what am I wearing, and how am I expressing myself visually? It’s been great having Tim as a sounding board.” Of Kling’s “amazing” exploration of the MTF experience, Miller says, “It’s an incredibly hot-off-the-griddle space to be creating performance from. She’s so in the midst of it.”Miller, who had met Harper before, encouraged the 27-year-old Washington, D.C., native to apply to the program. “Sentell is very much sifting through his identity as a black man,” Miller says. “No young queer black man is making the piece he can make right now.” For Harper, Miller’s input has been tremendous. “You’re putting your dirty laundry out there to the public,” Harper says. “For Tim to bear witness to this kind of work—he’s so encouraging; he makes us feel like we’re on the right path.”Meanwhile, the oldest of the three, 31-year-old Puerto Rican–raised Rodriguez Lora, explores family and Latina queer identity. Entering performance work after a long career as a dancer, she saw in teaming with Miller an opportunity to shift into solo performance. “The mentorship program took me to the next level of what I needed…that strength of being a solo performer,” she says. Miller adds: “Awilda’s doing work around family, the lesbian body, incredibly fierce and funny work about sex and masturbation. Her work is really powerful.”Miller himself will preview a new work at Links Hall this weekend. And while we suspect he has many more years of solo work ahead of him, he seems enthusiastic to pass the torch to a new generation. “These three mentees are going to be nationally important emerging artists,” Miller says.Tim Miller’s Charged Bodies Residency Program happens at Links Hall Friday 21 and Saturday 22.

Monday, September 01, 2008

TIM MILLER FALL 2008 NEWS!

FOR TWIN CITY FRIENDS WHO ARE SUFFERING THE GOP CONVENTION POLICE STATE!

This film "My Skin is a Map" was a joyous collaboration between filmaker Venus de Marswww.venusdemars.com(AKA Steve Grandell) and Tim Miller. Working with performer Domonick Wegesinwww.theopener.comduring a very romantic connection in Minneapolis Tim and Domonick conspired with Venus to fulfill a commission from KTCA TV in Minneapolis. The tasteful, yet naughty, homoerotics of the film freaked the PBS station out and it was never shown. But the memory and heat of a beautiful May in Minneapolis lives on.

Hope you all have had a good summer! I have been swimming in the Pacific Ocean as much as possible to prepare body and soul for my crazy Fall Tour! This summer I started a fantastic ongoing residency in Chicago at Links Hall as part of a National Performance Network Communty Grant! More on this great project below.

I am very excited about the wild touring and teaching I will be doing September to December! It's time to get back to work, hitch up my saddle bags and hit the road for Illinois and Missouri and Massachusetts and Texas and heaps of other states! Not to mention many California gigs at Cal State Chico! Cal State San Marcos! San Francisco! There is a California ballot initiative Proposition 8 to fight before November 4. Prop 8 would overturn California's new marriage equality access for Lesbian and Gay Californians. Much work to do!

A first visit to Wheaton College in Massachusetts kicks off the Fall. I am very excited about my first residency at University of Missouri where many of my close theater & performance studies pals hail from. I always love performing in the "Show Me State"! My annual performance wrokshop intensive at SMU will be hooked up with a first performance at Texas Tech in Lubbock! Frequent stops in Chicago all Fall and then shows all over California around election time.

Here's an essay just out I wrote for THE ADVOCATE (the main gay magazine in the U.S.)http://advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid55080.aspIt is my fantasy commencement address to the artists I have worked with last year at my performance workshop residencies at Colleges/Universities all over the US. Quite fun and a tribute to the amazing students I encounter on my travels around the country teaching and performing.

More to be still pinned down (I am keeping my fingers crossed for Oklahoma!) Here's the schedule as it stands now. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF SPOTS ON MY DANCE CARD STILL FREE!

The first chunk of my CHARGED BODIES performance residency in Chicago at Links Hall was great. Did shows of "Us" and made a piece with an amazing group of 16 performers as part of a National Performance Network Community Fund grant. The group performance project CHARGED BODIES was pretty amazing...wild performances of gender and desire and family. It was a great way to kick off this ongoing 4 month chicago-based queer performer mentorship project and is going to be really interesting. This is the biggest project I have ever done in Chicago. It all builds toward me and the three performers I am working with premiereing new work in Nov at Links Hall. Should be a blast.

Monday, May 19, 2008

CALIFORNIA MARRIAGE EQUALITY!!!!

“An individual’s sexual orientation – like a person’s race or gender- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.”

California Supreme Court, May 15, 2008

Dear Friends,

What a great day May 15 was as California joined Massachusetts as the 2nd Marriage Equality State! To quote the great (mostly) anti-racist Broadway musical South Pacific- and to interject a prickly moment of problematic gay minstrelsy – I guess I am just a “cock-eyed optimist”. Okay, we are catching me on a good day right now. The California Supreme Court just declared that denying gay people access to civil marriage is unconstitutional. “ An individual’s sexual orientation – like a person’s race or gender- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.” No high court in the US has ever used such sweeping inclusive language around gay civil rights. The California Supreme Court was the very first in 1948 to overturn the laws banning interracial heterosexual marriage in the great Perez v. Sharp decision - it would take the US almost twenty years to catch up- so what happens here is a game-changer. For the past ten years I have put the majority of my creative efforts as a performer and writer exploring marriage and immigration equality and working toward the centuries-long fight against the racism, sexism and homophobia of so-called “traditional” marriage that separated races, supported slavery, suppressed women, and erased gay folks.Sadly - since this decision is only state marriage rights and NO Federal rights like immigration- this wonderful California decision doesn't help my Australian partner Alistair and I in our immigration battle to remain in the US. As Gilbert and Sullivan would say "modified rapture". But how can I not feel hopeful when the Supreme Court of my state bats such a home run?

And all of us, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US, have a role to play now because unlike Massachusetts there is no residency requirement for a marriage license in California. Thousands and thousands of Lesbian and Gay couples from every state in the US will have a California wedding - - thus pulling at least one state out of the Bush recession! -- and will be coming back to Ohio and Idaho and North Carolina and New York and demand the humanity and dignity of our lives and loves to be respected. This is a chance for cultural and educational engagement and transformation to kick into high gear! Talk about a rich creative teaching & learning moment!

Now I can look out my window from my computer and see the right wing, anti-immigrant, gay–hating buzzards assembling over California for a feast as they try to pass a California ballot initiative to overturn the decision, but I need to allow myself a moment of hope for my state, my country, my life. I went to Macy elementary school in La Habra, CA and I was frequently a flag-monitor, a role reserved for the queer boys and most prissy of Boy Scouts. Before we ran them up the pole, I would hold the US and California flags - both of which have been frequent props in my work- and sensed as a little gay boy that they weren’t really my flags, especially the one with the stars and red and white stripes. But I held out a particular hope for the flag with the friendly Smoky the Bear on it with the problematic co-opted Mexican colors, those colors and that land stolen in just one of many unjust American wars with Mexico. In a fantasy sequence in my show MY QUEER BODY that hopeful California Republic tri-lingual bear (fluent in Spanish, English and Bear) even leads me to safety during a dark moment of getting bashed by cops at an ACT UP rally when CAlifornia Governor Wilson had vetoed the California State gay rights bill.

Last week as I waved my California flag on the streets of Los Angeles at the rally after the marriage equality decision, a flag that is a prop from my shows as will as a symbol of my social self, how could I deny myself a brief strong moment of deep hope that this country does not have to be the way it is. We do not have to fear the other, freeze our hearts with Homeland Security ICE, bomb every other country, kick out Alistair and I or any other queer bi-national couple. In an integrated moment of art and social self, I felt like maybe someday I will at last be treated as a citizen of this country. I breathe in that hope. I eat it for breakfast. I spread it in my performances. Now it is time to get back to work hitch up my saddle bags and hit the road for Illinois and Missouri and Massachusetts and Texas and dozens of other states! Not to mention California gigs at gigs at Cal State Chico! Los Angeles! Cal State San Marcos! San Francisco! There is a California ballot initiative to fight before November!

warm regards, Tim Miller

PS Here's Alistair and I - well, the backs of our heads! - at the rally May 15 in Los Angeles.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

TIM MILLER WINTER NEWSLETTER

Happy New Year! I wish everyone a great new year! I will be running all over the US the next few weeks...from New York to New Orleans...Baltimore to Minneapolis! Calendar list below.

I am really excited about an intensive performance workshop residency I am doing at the University of Minnesota Feb 3-15. I will be leading a multi-week project called Theatre for Social Change which will result in an ensemble performance with the students. The heat of the fierce work I have experienced with the students there in earlier gigs will more than make up for chilly February in Minnesota! I'll scurry to Milwaukee right after to perform February 16 at Milwaukee Gay Arts Center.

I will be back in DC performing my show "Us" Feb 29-March 2 at Dance Place.http://danceplace.org/Performances.aspx?Sc=118I am very excited to be back at the fabulous Carla Perlo's Dance Place. I will also be performing "Us" at Baltimore Theatre Project March 15-16 after a performance residency at Towson University March 4-11.

"Us" got nominated in 2005 for a NY Drama Desk Award for best solo on or off Broadway. This show is also in my book 1001 BEDS which won the 2007 literary prize for best Drama-Theater book from Lambda Literary Foundation!! Here's a juicy NY Times quote...

"As a rallying cry for gay rights, Tim Miller's "Us'' contains a sweet-spirited, honest and seriously funny commentary on the power of popular art to shape people's moral, social and sexual development. Miller is, as always, a frisky and charismatic performer"

In between all that I head off to NYC to perform at Long Island University in Brooklyn March 13 at 3pm and later that night my partner Alistair McCartney will have the launch for his novel in NYC at Rapture on Ave A. Alistair and I are very excited about his book coming out Here's the cover and blurbs for Alistair's book THE END OF THE WORLD BOOKhttp://alistairmccartney.blogspot.com/Then off to Ohio for gigs at Ohio Wesleyan and then in Cleveland and at long last home!

I kick off the New Year this week performing at Highways Performance Space Jan 14. I am honored to be the opening act for my dear pal Jeff McMahon's wonderful performance FAILURE TO THRIVE (we small hours)Jeff and I have been dear friends since we were 14 years old; we even went to the same church! What may be more surprising to you is that I went to church as a kid!

I will be performing "Us" as part of the festival. I was just in New Orleans last month for the National Performance Network meeting. It was my first time back to NoLa since my performances there shortly before Katrina. I drove with my friend Scotty Heron and some other folks to the Katrina wreckage on sunday . So intense. So much loss of windows and relics and love letters and roofs and beds. Brad Pitt- bless his heart and cheekbones- is spearheading this great renewal effort. There are all those big 3-dimensional pink imagined future houses in that area which was very powerful, They mark where a new community will be. "LIke Christo except with meaning" I catily opined.I stripped to my underwear and dipped into lake Ponchitrain (!!!) with some people. Somehow I needed to connect to the water that did this damage,. I kept my head above water- didn't want that nasty Lake Ponchitrain water in ears, nose or mouth- but the metaphor was not lost on me of this cruical thing- HEAD ABOVE WATER. That line at the neck, like that water line on so many of the houses in the 9th ward.

Friday, November 23, 2007

ALISTAIR'S BOOK COVER! OUT IN 2008!

ALISTAIR McCARTNEY - THE END OF THE WORLD BOOK

Alistair McCartney is the author of THE END OF THE WORLD BOOK to be published in April 2008 by University of Wisconson Press. This is no ordinary novel. An encyclopedia of memory—from A to Z—The End of the World Book deftly intertwines fiction, memoir, and cultural history. Born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1971, his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Fence, Bloom, James White Review, and other literary journals, as well as in a number of fiction and creative nonfiction anthologies, including Wonderlands: Good Gay Travel Writing (University of Wisconsin Press) and Between Men (Carroll and Graf.) He lives in Los Angeles with his partner Tim Miller and teaches creative writing and literature in the BA Program at Antioch University Los Angeles and Antioch Santa Barbara.

The End of the World BookA Novel byAlistair McCartney

This is no ordinary novel. An encyclopedia of memory—from A to Z—The End of the World Book deftly intertwines fiction, memoir, and cultural history, reimagining the story of the world and one man’s life as they both hurtle toward a frightening future. Alistair McCartney’s alphabetical guide to the apocalypse layers images like a prose poem, building from Aristotle to da Vinci, hip-hop to lederhosen, plagues to zippers, while barreling from antiquity to the present.

In this profound book about mortality, McCartney composes an irreverent archive of philosophical obsessions and homoerotic fixations, demonstrating the difficulty of separating what is real from what is imagined.

“If I’ve read a more deeply impressive, beautiful, sweeping, mindful, and innovative first novel than Alistair McCartney’s The End of the World Book, I have no memory of it. McCartney is a writer of peerless, brilliant originality and pure, giant talent.”—Dennis Cooper, author of The Sluts and God Jr.

“The End of the World Book is in turn informative, playful, erotic, imaginary, witty, perverse, charming, autobiographical, and full of wonders; the letter K, for example, begins with Kafka and ends with Freddie Krueger. If the world is ending soon, I recommend you read it while there’s still time.”—Jim Krusoe, author of Iceland and Blood Lake

“Beguiling, comical, earnest, and wise beyond its author’s years. Crossing sporadic bursts of linear narrative with a detailed taxonomy of altercation, McCartney has engineered a compelling compendium of integrated distractions, somewhat in the manner of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Read it from A to Z. He knows who you are: you will be quizzed.”—James McCourt, author of Mawrdew Czgowchwz and Queer Street

Friday, October 19, 2007

TIM at UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA

I am at the Lied Center at Univ of Nebraska here in Lincoln completing a really exciting two-week performance residency today. The Lied Center put together a fantastic residency full of community inreach and outreach, I did a keynote speech for the big LGBT resource center fundraising gala at Univ of Nebraska which was such a great event. I'm making a piece HARD LOVE with 12 students and community members which will be performed tonite which has I am completely excited about, Poster below. Other highlights. I performed two of my solo shows at the Lied Center. I was the performer at the benefit for the Nebraska state LGBT advocacy group benefit in Omaha. Plus many class visits and talks and workshops. WOW. It's busy here! This two week-long performance workshop I have led here at UNL has been an exciting and charged exploration into creating original performance work from our lives, dreams, obsessions, peeves, memories and desires. It has been a great pleasure and inspiration to create our tribe for a short time and jump into this original ensemble work HARD LOVE. I want to thank the artists for diving in so bravely and being ready to dig that extra foot (or mile!) into these gnarly, moist and tricky terrains! Thanks also to the Lied Center for making it all happen!

I brought my own Cornhuskers Lotion, which is oddly not on sale in Nebraska, the Cornhusker State! I had never performd in Nebraska before this trip though I did throw up in that state in the North Platte River while crossing the country on that weird bus The Grey Rabbit!FYI....Cornhusker's Lotion is a delightful viscous lotion that my Kansas farmer grandfather always used on his hands. It is water-based and is also supposedly used as a "personal lubricant!"

Saturday, September 15, 2007

GLORY BOX EXCERPT ON YOU TUBE! FALL SCHEDULE

Speaking of GLORY BOX...here is a new YOUTUBE performance excerpt I just put up from that show. Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQrAoTKGs7I

I hope you are had a great summer and the Fall is arriving excitingly! I am getting ready for a busy Fall Tour that starts Sept 22-23 in San Diego and keeps me running nonstop till after Thanksgiving with performances and workshop residencies at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts at University of Nebraska, San Diego at Masonic Hall, SMU, Davidson College, Wake Forest University, Cal State University Northridge, Williams College and Salem State University.

Monday, August 20, 2007

SUMMER IN VENICE! FALL TOUR!

Here I am learning to swim from my mom when I was 4 years old in Phoenix, Arizona! One of life's sustaining pleasures!

I hope you are having a good summer. I am here in LA having a Venice Beach breather in August before my busy Fall Tour starts in September with performances and workshop residencies at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts at University of Nebraska, San Diego at Masonic Hall-Claire de Lune, SMU, Davidson College, Wake Forest University, Cal State University Northridge and Salem State University. The two week residency at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts will be really exciting. I will be making a piece with the University of Nebraska students and performing two of my solo shows US and GLORY BOX.http://www.liedcenter.org/events/index.php?m=10-2007Speaking of GLORY BOX...here is a new YOUTUBE performance excerpt I just put up from that show. Check it out.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQrAoTKGs7I

I had a blast in London this summer with my run of 1001 BEDS. My shows went really well. Here's nice big interview piece in Time Out for my London performances at the Drill Hall.http://www.timeout.com/london/gay/features/2977.html1001 BEDS won the US gay literary prize for best Drama-Theater book from the Lambda Literary Foundation. That was nice.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

excerpt from MY QUEER BODY

Sunday, April 22, 2007

SPRING NEWSLETTER- ENGLAND TOUR

Lots is happening this Spring! My new book 1001 BEDS has been nominated as the Best Book in the Drama category from the Lambda Literary Foundation, the big queer literary awards in the US. The awards will be announced May 31 in NYC. I was also very happy 1001 BEDS just got the best solo award from Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle in SF!

I had a really wonderful run in NYC at PS 122 with 1001 BEDS. Lovely press in New York Times and Village Voice and two weeks of full houses. Photo from PS 122 performance is above! Look at my little bed-stage!

From NEW YORK TIMES review of 1001 BEDS on March 13, 2007.... "As a performer, Miller is a real pro, a savvy craftsman who knows the shape of a classic narrative ....It’s a hopeful show, and you are left with the impression that Mr. Miller is an eternal optimist, happy with his life and his mission to continue doing enlightened performance art. He has plenty more beds to sleep in, and he’s looking forward to every one." NEW YORK TIMES

I'll head off to England in May and June! I will be doing my new show 1001 Beds in London the Drill Hall June 9-17.http://www.drillhall.co.uk/pl270.htmlThe performance ends up with a long story about a very important bed in my life in London. Bed 241 at the Adelphi Hotel in South Kensington, London where my partner Alistair and I first decamped to when we met in 1994!If you are around London come by or send pals to the fabulous Drill Hall!

Now...as for the canals. I am obsessed with canals (I live in Venice, California after all!) They are a prime queered space in Birmingham and they are the most extensive canal system on earth. The Birmingham project is especially exciting. I will be devising a queer men's project on the canals of Birmingham as a historically charged psychic space of community and erotics. Take a journey down under along the canal! This site specific ensemble performance will explore in real time and space the queer psychic and sexual flow of the canals of Birmingham. Embarking from the Brindley Place canal boat dock, CANAL ZONE will chart the ways queer life is inscribed along the wet paths of Birmingham’s canals. Miller, who directed earlier gay men’s performance projects for FIERCE SUCK, SPIT, CHEW, SWALLOW and LIE BACK AND THINK OF BIRMINGHAM will invite the witnesses for his unique promenade performance to consider the movement and exchange of bodies, goods and fluids along the paths and wet ways of the canals. The site specific promenade performance will take place on June 3 at 7PM.

I fly home from London to LA for five minutes after the run at the Drill hall June 9-17 and zap right back to Philadelphia for the Gay & Lesbian Theater Festival where I will be performing my show "Us" June 24-25.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

HAPPY NEW YEAR & WINTER GIGS

Happy New Year! It's a very busy Winter-Spring 2007 ahead that will take me from performing at the Obscenity Conference at University of Iowa to the NYC run at PS 122 of 1001 BEDS to England for a gay men's performance project on the Birmingham Canals! Yeehaw!An intensive performance workshop residency begins next week at Cal State Channel Islands (the brand new Cal State campus)Next month I am at Cincinnati Playhouse to kick off their wonderful ALTERACTIVE Festival. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070103/ENT07/701030312/1025Then I'm at Appalachian State University in NC and in Phoenix and Tucson at Arizona State Iniversity and U of Arizona. I head back to Iowa City to perform at an amazing conference at University of Iowa on OBSCENITYhttp://www.uiowa.edu/obermann/obscenity/that gathers academics, civil liberties folks and artists. This will be really interesting to me! I head directly from Iowa City to Ft Lauderdale for ART EXPLOSION.http://www.artexplosiononline.org/gpage1.htmlIn March I will be performing 1001 BEDS in New York at PS 122. We will be creating a "hotel room" installation in a gallery that the audience will occupy as they lounge on couches and the bed while I perform right in their laps! I will have to watch that the PS 122 audience doesn't raid the mini-bar!As an early Spring coming attraction, in May I will be in Birmingham UK directing a canal boat performance project for the Fierce Festival created with a group of gay men. This queer performance project exploring the canals as a site of queer memory-eros-connection gets more exciting to me every day. I am obsessed with canals. But then I live in Venice, California!I just had a great first gig of the new year. Performed in Santa Ana . Kicked off the year in Orange County, CA at Rude Guerrilla theatre! Great piece in OC Weekly. Lovely packed shows. Nice way to start the year! http://www.ocweekly.com/culture/theater/ecce-homo/26495/

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

ELECTION NOTES FROM ME IN IOWA

Great news on the election! Yippee! The end of these nightmare six years is finally here. I have been in Minnesota and Iowa the last two weeks. I had a rehearsal with my group on election night at the University of Iowa and then went to the Johnson County Democratic Party election night event at the fancy Vitro hotel here in Iowa City. Was quite joyous. An Iowa political science college professor Dave Loebsack -who ran against a 30 year GOP incumbent in the US House and beat him- came in at end of evening and the place went wild. One of those democrats who took back the house. Very Mr Smith Goes to Washington! A special night all around! All this and Arizona became the first state to defeat a ban on gay marriage! Yay ARIZONA!(My grandfather was an Arizona homesteader, so this really tickles me.) Here's a great piece about my residency from the Daily Iowan.http://www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2006/11/09/80Hours/Art-As.Activism-2448438.shtml?norewrite200611141124&sourcedomain=www.dailyiowan.com

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Tim Miller End o' Summer News and Fall Highlights!

I hope everyone is having a great end of summer which in California still has lots of mileage/beach/BBQ's in it! I am looking forward to hitting the road Sept 15 with my annual performance workshop residency in Dallas at SMU's theatre program.This Fall I will be running around with my new show 1001 BEDS as well as my performances US and GLORY BOX in the touring repertory. (I do all three full-evening pieces in a two week span in three different cities! That will be a good brain cell check!) In addition to SMU (Sept 15-17), I will be doing four other intensive University Residencies this Fall at Kutztown University Sept (18-24) in PA, at University of Iowa, (Oct 27-29) University of Minnesota (Nov 2-4) and at UNC Chapel Hill (Oct 8-15)!Also performances & residencies coming up this year at Cincinnati Playhouse, CSPS in Cedar Rapids, the TRANS Festival at Univ of Wisconsin, Duke University, Hamilton College, Vortex Theatre in Austin, Rude Guerrilla Theater in CA and many more. The vibe has been very good on 1001 BEDS my new performance and book! I was very busy this Spring with runs LA, SF , Chicago, Winston-Salem, San Diego and just now in New Jersey. Here's some juicy review qoutes on the show from the daily papers. Have a great summer and beginning of Fall season and I hope to see you in 06-07!

1001 BEDS PRESS QOUTESMiller's technique — a frisky, half-lidded fidget on high alert to audience energies — gives way to flashes of poetic stillness that demonstrate how gracefully Miller has matured without losing either his inquisitive ardor or wicked humor.An almost shamanic spirit emerges when least expected, with striking immediacy.Think casual seduction concealing urgent consciousness-raiser, and you have the measure of "1001 Beds" and the nonpareil explorer of self and spirit who recounts them with such potent assurance.David Nichols, LOS ANGELES TIMESMiller's performance style in 1001 BEDS, which manages to synthesize incantatory segments with looser sections that feel almost improvisational, lends itself well to tracing the ups and downs of someone whose life and loves have often been shoved into the margins of society -- and have also provided the key to his art. His travels for justice, art and personal revelation have led Miller into a lot of strange beds, but like most of us, what he wants most is one safe haven to share with one other simpatico soul.Kerry Reid, CHICAGO TRIBUNEMiller's wily wordplay uses the metaphor of the bed as the stage for the beginning and end of life, and the site of the most important human experience in between -- love. Miller brought to even his angriest screeds that benign, self-mocking humor that has helped him survive across three contentious decades with his social activism intact. The writing itself is thoroughly engaging; this Whittier-born artist, and his vision of a more humbly democratic and gay-friendly U.S., remains as compelling as ever.Anne Marie Welsh, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNEMy new book of essays & performances 1001 BEDS! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0299216942/sr=8-1/qid=1142957127/ref=sr_1_1/103-0241494-4217438?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Thursday, August 31, 2006

ALISTAIR AND I MET 12 YEARS AGO...

ALISTAIR AND I MET 12 YEARS AGO...

I have been thinking tons (or "heaps" as Alistair would say) of Alistair and I meeting in London in summer 1994. It was such a hot July summer in London when I met Alistair at the Institute for Contemporary Art and we were launched on our adventure together.

Here's something I wrote later that year...

I met him by the Eros statue in Piccadilly.Those lights flashed and so did we.We laughed and held handsthe whole way to South Kennsington.Talking faster than we could feel.The hotel door clicks shutand clothes must fall to the Cromwell Road carpetand skin must move beneath hands.Our bodies open for each others business.We sucked the things that one can:fingers, tongues, lips and cocks.We fucked the places that one can:Mouths, assholes, heads and hearts.And somewhere inside that kiss or that cuma fine place opened uplike a March meadow.This place said to me, "This man will be my friend."Fresh from Western Australia on Jordanian Airlines.We will learn more in other hotels.Go far out of our way to lick each others chestsand know what our Father's did in the war.Anything that men can doto feel this delicious sadness of getting close.Close enough to...

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

ME & WATER SPORTS

I was swimming in the ocean this afternoon here in Venice Beach and I was thinking about the many bodies of water I have leapt into and how much that leap means to me! I came home and saw this photograph of me at fourteen years old on the water polo team at Lowell High School in La Habra , California. How small I look and how impossibly wet I must be yet have managed to keep my big hair dry for the foto! I must have slipped my little body in my Speedo into the shallow end and taken my place in front of my friend Marco Schindelmann. Tomorrow when I go to San Diego to perform, I may well stop on the way south and hike down to Black's Beach, my favorite queer nude beach in the world, and let that water slip over my body. Not even my Speedo-at-age-fourteen coming between my skin and my water.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

1001 BEDS in CHICAGO & L.A.

I have been traveling for weeks.The new show and book 1001 BEDS going great. I had a total blast in Chicago, S.F and L.A. Though I was very busy. Chicago was especially juicy. Teaching at Roosevelt University every day. Doing bookstore stuff two nites. My three performances at Bailiwck Repertory. And a really amazing experience performing and speaking at the Illinois Math & Science Academy, a public boarding school for smart high school kids. Was very inspiring to see how receptive they were to my work, politics, naughtiness! It gave me tons of hope for the future. I just finished a fabulous two week run in L.A. at Highways Performance Space. There's a fabulous BIG feature interview on 1001 BEDS in LA City Beathttp://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3762&IssueNum=154Also lovely review in LA Times. Here's link and also below. http://www.calendarlive.com/stage/cl-et-stage19.4may19,0,3981344.story?coll=cl-stage-utility-right

May 19, 2006Los Angeles TimesTHEATER REVIEW'1001 Beds'A flash of the artist within at Highways Performance SpaceBy David C. Nichols, Special to The Times

Perhaps the most provocative thing about the layers of reflection that make up "1001 Beds" at Highways is how benign they initially appear. Die-hard skeptics who view performance artist Tim Miller as the gay bane of all existence will be as unprepared as longtime fans who expect naked revelations. This impeccably calibrated trip across the bedrock bedrooms of Miller's career may be his most quietly subversive work.

Prurient viewers should be aware that author-performer Miller remains clothed — "1001 Beds," which derives from a new collection of scripts, diary entries, essays and interviews, values content over display. The barebones presentation and saturated lighting are exactly enough frame for Miller's self-as-canvas. His technique — a frisky, half-lidded fidget on high alert to audience energies — gives way to flashes of poetic stillness that demonstrate how gracefully Miller has matured without losing either his inquisitive ardor or wicked humor.

That adult inner landscape, from which Miller's ongoing work-in-progress (or life-in-progress) resonates, is paramount to "1001 Beds." An almost shamanic spirit emerges when least expected, with striking immediacy. Miller's account of meeting partner Alistair McCartney, for example, is as touchingly personal yet universal as anything Miller has ever done, Proustian memory swathed in current meaning.

Think casual seduction concealing urgent consciousness-raiser, and you have the measure of "1001 Beds" and the nonpareil explorer of self and spirit who recounts them with such potent assurance.

Monday, February 13, 2006

MY NEW BOOK "1001 BEDS"

My new book "1001 Beds" was published by University of Wisconsin Press. The book won the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for best book in Drama-Theatre! “1001 BEDS” is a collection of my essays, performances, manifestos, performance touring stories from Tokyo to Chattanooga and my tell-too-much journals. There is also be a fun and fierce new performance based on excerpts from the book which is touring all over the place. "1001 BEDS" is a kinky and funny journey thru the beds and hotels and life on the road as a traveling salesman- oops I mean a performance artist! I was doing the math recently and I figured that if I continue to tour as a performer for another twenty years, I will end up sleeping in at least 1000 hotel beds in my lifetime on the road. For maximum poetic oomph, let's say 1001 beds! Here's a video of me performing a crucial section from the performance 1001 BEDS at PS 122 in New York City.

(It is this dangerous of love of life-statistics that made me calculate when I was seventeen how much semen I was likely to ejaculate over the course of a lifetime. I figured, based on a reasonable per orgasm average of 1.5 tablespoons, cumming at least three times each day until I was 35, somewhat less since then, I was going to fill two large Hefty garbage bags with cum!)

But it seems important to think about those beds. To let them wash over me, crush me with their rusty springs, dust mites and polyester comforters that Holiday Inn will never once wash! When I was a kid, I once saw in A Ripley’s Believe it or Not book a monument to a bed. The image was a four-poster bed up on a tall pillar like Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. As you might imagine, the monument was somewhere in the Midwest- maybe somewhere near Peoria- an area I have racked up many of those 1001 Beds! Anyhow, this monument was a tribute to the bed- a place where most of us are born on, most of us die on and most of us spend one third of our lives on. This idea thrilled me as a boy, since I loved being in bed greatly and knew in my life bed would loom large as an emotional, political and psychic hot spot. I knew my deepest sense of self would be forged in bed, history is made in bed, creativity and life force is generated from between the sheets: all those 1001 hotel beds I would travel to in the Midwest, just like that one up on the pillar in my Ripley’s Believe it or Not memory!

These 1001 beds today have become the symbol of my life on the road as an artist and activist. My mission -- and I have decided to accept it-- is to be always ready to run around and perform my lean-n-mean homo-drenched performances, cultural agitating, teaching and general being a way-out gay role model and/or target. Whenever I need to hop on a tiny plane for Des Moines or Chattanooga and show the rainbow flag I am ready to do this. This new book explores my journies and adventures and observations of this mission !

Monday, February 06, 2006

MUHLENBERG COLLEGE "LIVE TO TELL"

The LIVE TO TELL project was so tender and fierce. One of the artists in the project Greg Paradis wrote this really lovely essay about our work together

Tim!

It's Greg, from Muhlenberg College's Live to Tell. This picture is beautiful. I wanted to say that I had a fantastic time in LTT. It was the best experience I have ever had doing anything theatrical. I may even go so far as to say it was the best experience I have had, period. I wrote an article for the Muhlenberg Weekly about Live to Tell (i was asked to write it), but it didn't fit what they had wanted - they had wanted something impartial, something without bias. I simply couldn't do that. So here's the article, in case you were interested in reading it. Right before he left us for good, Tim Miller signed my Fag Bag. You have probably seen me with this bag before – it is a plain brown messenger bag that I sling over my left shoulder while the bag dangles on the right. However, what makes it a Fag Bag rather than simply a bag is the fact that almost every inch of its surface is covered with pins, most of which can be seen as “gay” in one way or another – I have scores of “gay-themed” pins (“Proud 2 B Fabulous,” “I’m Way over the Rainbow), about a dozen musical theatre pins (“Don’t Talk Like a Slut, Shelley!” “RENT,” “Ruprecht”), several progressively liberal pins (“War is NOT the Answer,” “What Would Buddha Do”), and several random pins that had quotations or pictures which I felt were either amusing, relevant, or somehow important to me as a person (“Strand Bookstore,” “I Give Good Hugs,” and this weird sparkly diamond thing I found in the box office lost-and-found, plus many more). And now my Fag Bag has a message from Tim Miller. It reads, Greg! Queer brother! Live loud & proud, Love Tim Miller. The first thing I noticed was the overabundance of exclamation points. Tim loves his exclamation points. In his book BODY BLOWS, there are places in which he has put several one right after the other in a sort of exclamation point ménage a trois (!!!). I then noticed how he called me brother. When I read that, I felt my heart begin to warm and my soul begin to lift. Because in a way, I am his brother. And I am Kara’s brother, and KK’s, and Sina’s, and Arielle and Tony and Match and Courtney and Kyle and Kaityln and Adam and Jen and Amanda and Kyla and Will and Desiree and Tia – we are all a family. We are all one unit of people, of hearts, of minds, of souls. It’s All One. There’s a reason why that was our mantra. Together, we had shared so many secrets with each other, all nineteen of us – we had grown together, we had wept together, we had laughed together, we had held each other in a way that none of us had ever been held before. Ever look at someone in the eyes for an entire minute? I can now say that I have, and that I enjoyed every minute of it. I felt completely exposed, utterly naked (which is one of the reasons why I ended up getting actually naked during the show – no jokes, please). But there was a sense of absolute trust that I garnered and shared with each person who allowed me to look into them. It was phenomenal to see what each person said to me only with their eyes – I received hope from one, love from another, similitude from a third – the communal emotions whirling around the room were overwhelming. Tears were overpoweringly forthcoming. I learned so much about myself and about my seventeen ensemble members during that two-week rehearsal period. I will never forget Courtney’s birds, or Kyla’s sticky labels, or Arielle’s hemlock crown – and I certainly won’t forget taking my pants off in front of 200 people a night. And what was the point of that? What, in fact, was the point of this entire show? What, as a group, were we trying to accomplish? As I already said before, I know that by simply sharing my story with the group, I felt infinitely closer to my ensemble members than almost anyone I have met on the Muhlenberg College campus. Our intent was to bring the audience into this same world of protection, this same atmosphere of trust and understanding, and to open our hearts to them and show them that they are not alone. I cannot count the number of people who came up to us and thanked us for sharing our stories with them. Literally dozens of people approached us, either as a group or individually, and admitted to their feelings of identification, the letting down of their guard, their pure and unadulterated giving over to our world while we took a moment to give ourselves over to them and to our souls. They told us that our performance would remain in their hearts forever. So much of our lives are spent keeping secrets from ourselves and our friends. In opening ourselves up to others, we were able to help them to open themselves up to themselves and bring another level of genuineness into their lives. I surmise that this was what they were thanking us for. We changed the dynamic of the audience from one of quiet, uncertain reservation to one of eager and willing participation – the audience was becoming more and more sure of themselves as we ourselves were as well. We were proud. We were loud. I certainly have tried to live loud and proud as my brother Tim so wisely suggested. For if we don’t, who are we then? After Dan’s piece, when the eighteen of us each approached the circle and stated a negative word and then its opposite, I declared loudly, “Shame…Pride.” Without pride, what are we but shamed? Without living loud, who really gets to know you? If you keep your thoughts inside, who can you share them with? Which brings me back to my Fag Bag. My Fag Bag is a celebration of me. As I said during my performance, if you can’t love me for me, then fuck off. My Bag tells people who I am. It is a Gay Bag. It is an Acting Bag. It is a Singing Bag. It is a Liberal Bag. It is a Loud Bag. And it certainly is a Proud Bag. People used to tell me that I had too many pins and buttons and ribbons on it. I used to agree with them. But then I met Tim Miller. And I’ve learned, you can never have enough pins. You can never be too loud.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

BACK FROM PERFORMANCE RESIDENCIES

I am just back from three weeks of performance workshop residencies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA and the Savannah College of Art. Wow! What great work the two ensembles did as we made original full-evening performance pieces. Wild visions of gender and culture and family and body. Personal myth and meatphor. Oops! I mean METAPHOR!

I love getting to pull this original performance material out of the groups I work with. I walk in the room to begin the work. I walk into the room with a head stuffed with questions. How to begin this work? What can I hope to achieve? Who are these people? These actors and artists. These humans. How can I start to get their juices to flow? Their risk-taking nature to come forward? Their courage to let their hearts be more open? What nerve I have to ask them to look into the abyss. Teaching people to perform is asking them to enter a series of embodied experiences of light, body, feeling and breath.

Through my work, I try to share a variety of strategies to create performance from the tremendous energies that are present in our lives as we live them. I guess I really do believe the journeys through our lives offer us tremendous opportunities to know ourselves more truly and to create a culture of witness that is crucial to becoming a human being. I ask these groups to look under their big rocks and find the hot and wet places of their stories, and dreams and myths. I ask them to own their fierce living and bring that forward to be witnessed. If you want to read a particpant's view of this work check out this linkhttp://www.netspace.org/~icwp/ICWPnewsletterNov2004-Seeing.html